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Culinary school at Jacksonville's Virginia College to open restaurant in San Marco

Virginia College's Kitchen in San Marco will take over the closed Oral Explosion, shown here in 2009.

Virginia College, which operates a culinary school on Beach Boulevard, plans to open a restaurant in San Marco. Called Kitchen on San Marco, it will be at 1402 San Marco Blvd. in a building that last housed Oral Explosion.

Virginia College, a for-profit school owned by the Education Corporation of America, includes a culinary program called Culinard in its curriculum.

The restaurant will be staffed by professionals, a spokeswoman said, but some students will work and be trained there. It will hire about 40 employees, she said, with opening planned spring of 2015.

The restaurant will be very similar to others the school operates in Mobile, Ala., Richmond, Va., and Chattanooga, Tenn. Virginia College has 26 locations around the country.

The restaurant will be a open for lunch, dinner and weekend brunch, she said, and the food will be a variety of American food with emphasis on local products.

The menu at Kitchen on George in Mobile, for example, includes items such as duck confit spring rolls, crawfish stuff mirliton squash and jambalaya shrimp pasta.

The building was the site of Applejack’s for years, first as a pizza and music venue, then more of a barbecue place. Then it was Diamond Dolls strip club.

Oral Explosion Eateries opened in 2009 with several restaurants in food court setting.

A $617,005 building permit was issued this week for the restaurant’s build-out. Oral Explosion Eateries Inc. still owns the building, which it bought in 2008 for $410,000.